Intel to Host UN Meeting

Intel will host a meeting between representatives of the the United Nations and business leaders in Silicon Valley to discuss ways of solving global problems such as access to health care, education and economic development. Craig Barrett, chairman of Intel, is also serving as the chairman of the UN group, The Global Alliance for ICT and Development. PodTech’s Jason Lopez has this podcast preview.

I’m Jason Lopez for PodTech.net. The United Nations faces some of its biggest challenges yet with global issues like World Hunger, Healthcare, Education, and Economic Development in third world regions. The UN has reached out to Silicon Valley for help with the solutions.

Sarbuland Khan – the UN

There are eight goals. Among them is to reduce poverty by half by 2015. Reduce infant mortality and improve Maternal Healthcare, improve the Environment, improve Gender Status, and Health and Education, Universal Primary Healthcare, Universal Primary Education. Now, these are very ambitious goals.

Jason Lopez – PodTech

That’s Sarbuland Khan, Executive Coordinator for The Global Alliance for ICT Development under the United Nations.

Sarbuland Khan – the UN

The last fifty or sixty years of development has shown that the present model of development does not deliver on large scale. We have achieved success at small scale level but to scale it up and achieve universal approaches and solutions is very difficult.

Craig Barrett – INTEL

We tried to make it very clear at the first meeting we had that; this is not a debating society not a talking society.

Jason Lopez – PodTech

Craig Barrett is Chairman of the chipmaker Intel and was appointed to the Chairman of The Global Alliance for ICT Development. The alliance is a Public-Private Partnership between IT companies and the UN. Later this month, Barrett hosts representatives of the UN and IT partner companies in a meeting to identify ways that Information Technology can help solve some of the world’s most significant problems. Barrett says The Global Alliance has already started to lay the groundwork in few areas.

Craig Barrett – INTEL

One is Broadband for Africa, one is wiring up digital services, one is a — kind of a volunteer core of IT specialists to go around the world to help implement these things. Another potential area is IT and Communication Technology for the disabled or the handicapped. But, we are not trying to solve World Hunger, we’re not trying to do everything for everybody, and we have made it very clear that it’s not a debating society, it’s an action oriented group. If we don’t get action, we don’t get results and I think everyone will get tired very quickly and go away. My job is to make sure that we don’t talk a lot, but we do a lot. The technology we bring to the game could not be more important and it’s a kind of the cream has risen to the top and we are involved in this very high level, very important, very basic activity. We just happened to be at the right place at the right time, in terms of what the world needs and what governments around the world want from its citizens.

Jason Lopez – PodTech

It may come as a surprise that information technology is revolutionizing among other things the way modern hospitals operate. That kind of expertise could have a major impact on merely delivering healthcare in third world regions. For podtech.net I’m Jason Lopez.

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